


Crack Spirit Guide

by youngmoneymilla



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Cute, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Romance, Wakanda (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 16:35:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16857526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngmoneymilla/pseuds/youngmoneymilla
Summary: The reader helps Bucky with his trigger words. Post Civil War





	Crack Spirit Guide

**Author's Note:**

> Just a drabble really of the reader helping Buckaroo with his demons. And yes “Crack Spirit Guide” is from one of my favorite episodes of ‘Girls’.

Wakanda is all lush green, naturally opulent with multicolored flora and fauna. The sun is a warm caress on your skin, the humidity thick and leaving you aching.

You sense him before he speaks.

After the last six months, you would be able to sense him even if you were blind. You were connected now, tied together. Two fraying ropes intertwining to form some tired knot.

* * *

You stay behind to help oversee Bucky’s healing. You had promised Steve that it was necessary. You  _understood_ Bucky.

In truth, you also need just as much of a break from the world after the crumbling of the Avengers. What better way to decompress than to run away to a hidden, tech-advanced paradise?

Shuri is lifesaver. She works nonstop at pulling out the traumatic memories that triggered the winter soldier. She isolates them, studies them, and analyzes the origins of their power.

That’s where you come in.

Shuri attaches some wires to both your head and Bucky’s head and you’re sent to work him through it.

The memories are horrific, colored by his guilt and sorrow. They remind you of old photographs, looping feverish and distorted and burned around the edges.

You jokingly refer to yourself as Bucky’s “crack spirit guide” in hopes of sugar coating the fact that you are trying to wash the blood out of Bucky’s mind. The sessions leave you sick and shaking but, you never let Bucky see that. Instead you journey with him, watching his best and worst moments play out like a film in surround sound Technicolor.

* * *

You watch as the winter soldier hovers above a blood soaked man, knife pulled wetly from his chest with a sickening squelch. The man is dressed in a suit, his eyes wide and mouth open in a quiet groan. You glance between the horrendously patterned wallpaper and shag rug and guess it’s some time in the 1970’s. The soldier wipes his knife clean and heads out in your direction, his body moving through yours. You tense regardless.

“Buck,” you say softly.

Bucky, the real Bucky, is staring at the scene before him. The man’s corpse is spread out on the floor; pictures of his children and his wife dot the side tables and shelves.

_Way to twist the knife a little deeper_  you think before mentally cringing at the pun.

“Bucky,” you repeat. “Look at me.”

Your fingers reach out to move his chin to face you, but they simply pass through his bearded jaw. You were only an image in his head, a specter from his present that could (you hoped) chip away at the trauma of his past.

His eyes shift up to yours. The blue is glazed with tears like cloudy vapor rising from a lake. He’s trembling and it makes your heart crack.

“You need to accept this.”  You motion to the body in front of you both. You take a step forward.

“The winter soldier is as much a part of you as James Buchanan Barnes is. The only thing is that you had no control over him.”

He doesn’t say anything but, you can tell he’s listening. He follows your movements as you step closer. For the past month, you’ve been coaxing him, massaging his mind with your words.

“The soldier is a victim,” you continue. “Always has been.”

“I can’t believe that,” he retorts. “A monster isn’t a victim.”

You scoff. You two have already had this argument, multiple times in multiple different ways in multiple different memories. It’s beginning to get old.

You cross your arms and plant your feet, staring him down.

“Okay time to cut the shit,” you snap. His eyes widen, full lips parting slightly read to argue before you hold your finger up to silence him.

“He’s a fucking victim, Bucky. I’ve been fighting evil for a really, really long time. I’ve seen the worst of humanity and pretty much the worst of non-humanity at that. I know what I’m talking about.”

He’s still silent, which you realize is better than him stomping off into some other guilt-soaked memory of murder, which would force you out of his head and back in Shuri’s lab. You move closer, your chests nearly touching as you stare up unto his face to meet his gaze.

“I’ve seen you, Buck,” you murmur. “I’ve seen every part of you these last few months. I’ve seen everything you’ve done as the winter soldier. Horrible things. But, things you were forced to do. I’ve seen who you were before Hydra. I watched you care for Steve, helping him breathe during an asthma attack or pressing hot cloths to his forehead during a fever. I’ve seen you sacrifice yourself for your country and put yourself on the front line when you so obviously didn’t want to. You did it because it was the right thing to do and because you are  _inherently good_. There is no way that that man, the man who is standing in front of me now, would do any of those unspeakable things unless he was truly forced to. So please believe me and forgive yourself.”

He’s speechless as he stares down at you. You hope your speech wasn’t too horribly trite.

“I don’t know how to do that,” he finally says softly, hair falling across his forehead.

He’s so ungodly beautiful in the chiaroscuro lighting of his memory. His cheekbones are sharpened by shadow and his eyes burn so brilliantly blue, you bet you would see the stars if you looked deep enough.

You would kiss him then if you could. You know you’d just float through him if you tried. With the way his eyes keep glancing down at your lips, you think he would if he could, too.

“You’re a good man, Barnes,” you stress, lips twitching up in a smile because you knowfinally,  _finally_ , you may have reached him.

“You just have to believe that.”

* * *

You feel him behind you, hovering against your back.

Ever since he’d been woken up from Cryo, Bucky trails behind you like a lost puppy. Shuri has teasingly nicknamed him “Your Shadow.” The first time she’d said it Bucky had blushed so fiercely you thought he’d combust.

Despite the months spent together in his mind, he had yet to touch you. There was hesitancy in his movements when he was around you. You decided to keep your distance until he was ready.

“What’s up, Buck?” you finally say, not yet turning around.

“You’ve been standing out here for a while,” he replies simply.

“An astute observation”, you joke. “I’m just thinking.”

“About?”

“Things!” You twist around to stare at him.

“That’s it?” he grins. His smile flashes pearl white against the darkness of his beard and you want to curse him for being so terribly good looking.

“You’d think that after giving you a front row seat to my deepest and darkest memories, you’d at least open up a little when it comes to what you’re thinking about.”

You smirk, finally turning fully to face him. “Fair enough.”

“I miss Steve. I miss Nat and Sam and Wanda,” you confess. “I miss Tony.”

Bucky averts his eyes quickly, a hint of shame coloring his features.

“Nope! Don’t do that, Buck. It wasn’t your fault.”

You stride towards him, hands itching to grasp his arms but you stop yourself.

“I know,” he shrugs. “Still hard.”

“I get it.”

You both are silent, choosing to stare at the beauty around you. The chirping of birds in the trees gives the air a melodic touch. The setting sun cools on your shoulders.

“I miss my family,” you sigh. “The  _Avengers,_ I mean. Theywere my family and who knows if that even exists anymore. I have no idea where most of them are. Steve was last in contact three weeks ago and I haven’t heard anything since which is really fucking annoying since I know his geriatric ass could have at least sent me an encrypted email or something letting me know he was alive and Sam could have shot me a tex-“

“Hey, calm down,” he interrupts, placing his hands on your neck, thumbs caressing both sides of your jaw. You’re taken aback by the intimacy of it and you peek up at him dumbstruck.

“I suppose I just feel a little lost without them,” you admit.

“Well, let’s just go talk to T’Challa or Shuri. You know they have some way of contacting them since they were the ones who told him I’m awake.”

“Um, yeah, good point.” For all of your superhero intelligence, you want to slap yourself for not thinking of the simplest solution.

“C’mon,” he steps away from you before offering his hand. “My “crack spirit guide” needs some answers.”

“Ugh you heard about that,” you moan.

“Shuri has been most informative about what you two talk about.”

“Traitor,” you whisper darkly under your breath.

He laughs loudly and sincerely, the sound echoing against the border of verdant trees that surround you. He is miles away from who he was after Siberia.

You thread your fingers through his, knocking shoulders together, your heart skipping at the touch.


End file.
